Internet Marketing Blog

By Christina Mejia
ChiefMarketer.com
November 25, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Blog): A great post by this Chief Marketer analyst on how Obama won the “Internet election campaign” by taking Web 2.0 tactics to the extreme. My personal experience with the Obama campaign’s 21st century tactics was wireless phone-based. I signed up to receive text message updates from the campaign, and did I ever receive updates!

“One thing the recent presidential election has taught us is that this country has changed – both from a social and a marketing perspective. While history books will forever mark November 4, 2008 as the first time Americans elected an African-American President (or any non-Caucasian President for that matter), the Obama for America campaign will be viewed by today’s marketers as a comprehensive case study in how to build a brand in a Web 2.0 world.

As has been dissected by several social media marketing analysts and experts, Barack Obama clearly won the numbers game, dominating John McCain in all areas of social media activity from YouTube video views to Facebook “Fans” and Twitter “Followers.” A key part of Obama’s success was the campaign’s early adoption of social media strategies and their ability to maintain a constant high level of activity (regular updates throughout the campaign, all the while maintaining a consistent brand image and message.) And the essential lesson learned from the success of the Obama campaign: “that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things.”

So what’s the lesson for marketers?”

Example: Obama’s Thanksgiving Address Posted on Change.gov and YouTube

Read the entire article by clicking on this link:

“The Social Success of Obama”

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

by Rick Burnes
Hubspot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
November 18, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Blog): What an insightful and helpful article! Rick Burnes does a masterful job of integrating the next round of Internet Marketing initiatives and showing how they can form the basis of a comprehensive online “Inbound Marketing” strategy. The comparison of Inbound Marketing tools to “Outbound Marketing” tools is spot-on. An excerpt with one of the charts from this blog entry is given below. I suggest you STOP whatever you’re doing, take 10 minutes and read the entire article (link below). You will not be disappointed!

“What Is Inbound Marketing?”

“Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.”

Read the entire article by clicking on this link:

“Inbound marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web”

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

by Bernie Borges
FindandConnect.com
November 13, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Blog): I had heard bits and pieces (pardon the pun!) about these viral videos from Blendtec, but had never heard the entire story. Well, here it is, including an iPhone “blending” demonstration!

“Yesterday’s keynote at Pubcon was George Wright, the Marketing Director at Blendtec. He told the story of how they have used viral video to exponentially grow their business in the past two years. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s a textbook case study on viral marketing on the social web. Here it is…

Blendtec is a Utah Manufacturer of commercial high performance blending products for restaurants. They also have a retail product called the Total blender that uses the same technology as their commercial products.

George joined the company less than three years ago. He quickly learned that Blendtec has great products but didn’t have brand recognition. Great products with a weak brand equals weak sales.

He recommended to Tom Dickson, Blentec’s CEO they do a brand campaign. Tom, said sure go ahead. And btw, your budget is $50. Not $50 per month. Just $50.

George turned lemon into lemonade….”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following link:

“Viral Video Pays Big at Blendtec”

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

by Dave Ingalls
Internet Marketing Blog
November 13, 2008

We ALL know how important backlinks are to the ranking of our Web pages by the major crawler-based search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.). Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are links from Web pages on other Web sites to pages on your Web site.

And I’m sure MANY of us have felt the frustration of searching Google and Yahoo with our keyword phrases and finding that one or more of our competitors rank HIGHER than we do for that phrase!

So what do you do about it? I just had what an old boss of mine called a “BGO” (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious) on this very subject!

Here’s a neat little trick I recently pieced together (I’m sure I’m not the first to do so!) while I was updating the “Linking Strategies” information on my Internet Marketing Course Web site:

Go to GOOGLE, enter one of your keyword phrases, and note the top search results of your COMPETITORS.

Now go to YAHOO Site Explorer and enter the Web page address (URL) of your competitor’s top ranking Web page in Google for that important keyword phrase.

Click the “Explore URL” button.

Next, click on the “Inlinks” button, and choose “Except from this domain” from the drop down menu.

You will then be presented with a list of Web pages that link back to that well-ranking Web page of your competitor. It’s Yahoo’s list of backlinks, not Google’s, but if Yahoo’s found them, you can be sure that Google has as well.

Now go thru that list and look for likely candidate Web sites that might also be interested in linking to a page on your Web site.

Also, before sending your backlink request, be sure to find the link to your competitor’s Web page from the target Web site so you can craft your request in a similar fashion to what already exists.

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

Karen Rubin and Rick Burnes
HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
October 31, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Blog): Why did HubSpot want to interview Larry Weber about the future of marketing and branding? Because Larry, as it says on the Digital Influence Group Web site, “is a globally known expert in public relations and marketing services. Passionate about the convergence of technology, the web and communications, he is a frequent public speaker on the future of marketing, the social web and building communities online.”

So sit back and enjoy a really thought-provoking conversation with an acknowledged social media marketing guru (video lasts 30 minutes).

Read Karen and Rick’s comments by clicking on the following link:

Larry Weber on the Future of Marketing and Branding

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing